Utopia
by aBookWyrm
Summary: AKA: The Bar at the End of the Universe. Captain Jack Harkness lives all the way to the year three trillion. One Shot.


******Disclaimer:** I don't own anything Dr. Who. I'm just playing around in the BBC sandbox for fun and practice.

**Utopia**

In the year three trillion there is not much left in the universe. The stars have burned out and the planets grown cold or spun off into the void that advances more and more every year. There is not much left in the universe. Not even time. Yet, on the crater pocked surface of a little moon that once orbited a mighty gas giant that in turn once orbited a mighty sun stands a strange little building of stone and wood that greatly resembled an eighteenth century welsh cottage at the foot of a giant radio tower. The flower gardens flanking the front door were scrubby and dead, as were the vines that climbed and curled around the shuttered windows. Steady, soft yellow light streamed out through the cracks in the shutters and a painted sign hung on rusted chains above the door proclaimed the place to be 'Utopia'.

Inside Utopia was a cozy little pub. The walls were paneled with dark oiled wood, the round tables were off the same and surrounded by chairs with red cushioned seats. The lighting was dim, electric and hung in wrought iron fixtures from the exposed beams of the ceiling. A fire burned cheerily in a central stone hearth. The bar, of course, dominated an entire wall, and was made of dark wood and polished to a mirror finish. Behind the bar hundreds of glass bottles of wines, liqueurs and whiskeys were stacked on wooden shelves from counter to ceiling, below that were racks of glasses of all kinds. There was no cash register in Utopia, because no one had had money for several millennia.

Captain Jack Harkness sat on a stool behind the bar. Idly he washed glasses and passed a clean rag over the polished surface of the bar. He poured himself a drink and hummed an old song to himself. All songs were old songs now. For the past million years or so he had not had the heart to make new ones, and everyone else was just too busy surviving in the decaying universe. He sipped his drink and he waited.

There was no day and there was no night. Eventually someone staggered into the bar at the end of the universe. After one came another, and more followed them. They were all battered and weary, many were angry. They had travelled so far to find Utopia, the promised safe haven from the End, and all they found was a little pub on a crater pocked moon. Many left, but there were those that stayed. Men and women, young and old, they stayed in Utopia where Jack tended to them. These men and women looked at Jack and they knew he was different, there was something about the way he moved, the deep look in his ancient eyes that let them know that if they stayed, they would be all right. Thus it was that there were patrons in the bar at the end of the universe at the time when the Master came.

The Master strutted into the pub like he owned the place, a slick, arrogant smile on his youthful face and a cold, emptiness in his dark eyes.

"Well, what do we have here? Humans. Filthy, disgusting humans," the Master sneered. He fingered the laser screwdriver in his jacket pocket. He had just built it and he was eager to try it on someone. The Master knew he had to be careful of what he did back in the twenty-first century, but here at the end of time, he could do anything. Or so he thought.

"I've been waiting for you, Master," Jack said. His voice was deep and resonated in an entirely inhuman way, a voice that was heard not only with the ears, but also with the mind.

The Master's jaw dropped, he could hardly believe his eyes. From his point of view, he had left Jack behind only a few short days ago in the abandoned facility where, as the aged Professor Yana, he'd built a rocket out of scrap metal and food products. The Master's vision blurred when he tried looking at Jack. He'd never seen the Captain before through the eyes of a Time Lord, Jack shone, he burned in the Master's vision like the heart of a star, impossibly old, his eyes like the Untempered Schism itself. He pointed the laser screwdriver at Jack.

"How did you get here?" the Master demanded.

Jack chuckled. "The long way," he said. He gestured to one of the stools at the bar. "Have a seat. Have a drink."

The Master scorched a long line on the bar with the laser.

Jack sighed, he'd seen the Master do far worse with that screwdriver. What was it with Time Lords and screwdrivers anyway? "Master, you don't frighten me." He stood and grabbed a glass off the rack. "What will you have? I've got everything." Jack flashed the Master a dazzling, suggestive smile, "Anything you could ever want."

The Master shuddered, keeping the laser pointed at Jack. "If you're here, that means I lose."

Jack laughed. The Master scowled.

"If you're still around," the Master said again, "That means the Doctor wins, doesn't it? DOESN'T IT?"

Jack stopped laughing and poured a deep amber liquid into the glass and set it down on the bar. He pushed the glass a little towards the Master. "I'm two and a half trillion years old, I am a fixed point in time. I must exist. Why should my being here, alive at the end of time, have any relevance to what you achieved in the past? Come, have a drink."

The Master edged closer to the bar.

"Are you afraid of me, Master?" Jack said, his green eyes glittering. He smiled. "You shouldn't be."

"I'm not!" The Master snatched the drink off the bar and downed it in one swallow. It burned all the way down between his hearts and sat in his stomach like a ball of fire. The heat flowed through his veins warming him from the tips of his toes to the roots of his hair. He slammed the glass down on the table, grinning as some of the silent patrons jumped and a little girl squeaked in fear. Jack filled the glass again.

"Why don't you look at me?" Jack whispered huskily.

"You're a freak." The Master hissed. "You shouldn't exist."

Jack nodded. An old man in a worn coat approached the bar. Jack poured him a drink and sent him back to his seat with a welcoming smile.

"Why did you do it?" the Master asked, "Why call them all here? Why spend the last of your days surrounded by these smelly, groveling apes?"

"I was once one of those groveling apes," Jack said. "And, I was lonely." He looked around the room at the huddled people whispering quietly to one another. "They were so scared. I remembered the horrors they faced from the first time I came here, and I wanted to help. To bring a little bit of peace to the end of time."

The Master made a disgusted noise, and decided to change the topic. "Would you die if I cut off your head?"

"No."

The Master pouted. "Are you sure? I could try it and see."

"I spent nearly forty-five billion years as a decapitated head."

'_Forty-five billion?'_ the Master mouthed in disbelief. "Well, thats no fun."

Jack leaned on the bar and smiled. "I have gone through nearly every stage of human evolution, even spent a couple thousand years as a sentient data stream."

"How do I die?" the Master asked.

"I can't tell you that."

"What can you tell me?"

"You choose your own end."

The Master grunted. "And the Doctor?"

"He chose his end too."

The Master stared at his reflection in the bar, and took a great swallow of the burning liquor. The drums were pounding in his ears. "You know, I thought I was the one who sent that signal, 'come to Utopia'. I came here for that, to call the humans here, and use them to get back at the Doctor. I have the greatest plan."

"It worked well," Jack said.

"It did?" the Master perked up. Jack nodded. "How?" the Master swept an encompassing arm around the bar room. "This lot would not an army make."

"Those you see here are only those who are content to wait for the end. The rest are out there." Jack nodded towards the door.

The Master downed the remnants of his drink and left. Jack sighed. It would all go as he remembered. The Master helped the humans become the Toclafane, won the election for Prime Minister of England, and turned the TARDIS into a paradox machine. Jack waited for the rift in time and space to open, staring into the sky for one last glimpse of his homeworld. Then he lead his patrons down into the basement of Utopia as the Toclafane descended on twenty-first century earth.

The basement was a small round room in which sat a small computer terminal and masses of black wires that were connected to an ancient wooden box that at one time had been blue. A murmured hush rippled through the crowd, _'What is it? Why is it here? What do we do?'_

"This is the TARDIS," Jack said. "She's very old, and very kind, and the last of her kind."

"That wooden box is alive?" someone said.

Jack nodded, and reverently opened the TARDIS's ancient door. "Hello, Sexy. Ready for one last trip?"

The lights on the TARDIS console blinked faintly, and the engine hummed quietly. The crowed followed cautiously behind him. There was a collective gasp as the first came through the doors, _'It's bigger on the inside'. _Jack ran his hands over the console gently, "I know your tired, old girl. I am too. This will be the last trip, I promise." Gallifreyan words flickered briefly on cracked screens. "The Doctor would have wanted you to try." A feeling of sorrow pervaded the room. "I miss him too, Sexy, you know I do. This is the last thing we can do for him. Save the human race one last time." The lights on the console flicked once, then pulsed to life with a _thrum_ of determination. "Ha ha! I knew I could count on you!" Jack laughed. He turned to the crowd, beaming. "Everyone! The TARIDIS is going to be your home from now on. Take care of her, and she'll take care of you. I don't know how long your voyage will last, and I don't know where you'll end up. But when the doors of the TARIDIS open again, you'll be in a new world, a new universe. Be good. Be kind. Good luck."

Jack smiled at them all with ancient eyes and pushed through the murmuring crowd towards the doors.

"Aren't you going to stay with us?" a little girl asked.

"No, I'm staying here."

"But you'll die!"

"I know." Jack said, and walked out the doors. He locked them behind him. He heard the little girl screaming for him. "Emma," he said through the doors, "don't worry about old Captain Jack. I'm nearly as old as the universe itself, I've been waiting a long time to die, so don't be sad. If you cry for me, let them be happy tears, think of me fondly if you do, and know that I chose my end. Be good, Emma."

"Grandfather, please! Don't do this!" Emma cried. "Come back! Please come back!"

Jack turned away from the doors and hit a couple of switches on the old computer terminal. The wires crackled and sparked. A great sphere of nothingness swirled into existence around the TARDIS, condensing into a void ship. Jack brushed the tears from his eyes and ascended the stairs to the now empty bar. He sat down, poured a drink, hummed an old song, and thought of all the friends he'd loved and lost. He raised a toast to the star-dead sky and waited, at long last, to die.


End file.
